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Friday, July 24, 2009

Lorelei

Rory is 10 months and 1 day old today....she's been wearing 12 month clothes for a couple of months already.....every person who sees her lately (now that it's warm and she's usually wearing shorts or a dress) asks if they can squeeze her thighs. I usually let them because they really are irresistable thighs! After such peanuts, it's so strange to me to see the rolls on her. She's been working on trying to walk...she's been cruising for quite a while and I'm happy that she hasn't put it together, but I do think it'll be any day now that we'll be chasing after her.

Her spitting up has practically stopped....probably as her intake of solids increased. She loves food...the baby food in jars is a game to her....how much can she wear! She wants to eat whatever we're eating, so I usually indulge her and just cut it up as small as I can. This does make packing up for work hard because I don't know what to pack for her....I'm working on that one! I made scrambled eggs with onion, tomato, and cheese last weekend and she inhaled it! I couldn't believe how much she ate!

She's been doing peek-a-boo lately, too...but instead of covering her eyes, she covers her ears and you get to see the dimples on her elbows- heavenly! She loves clapping her hands, particularly when "We will rock you" comes on. This is Baz's favorite song of the moment and I like putting it on because it makes all the kids happy.

I still maintain that Lorelei is the easiest baby of the bunch....she still wakes once or twice during the night usually (she has slept through on occasion!), but she goes down for the night and naps like a dream. After a bottle, I put her down, wave goodbye, and leave the room and she plays for a few minutes, then goes to sleep. Baz did this too, but Anya took HOURS to get to sleep. I remember sitting outside her room in a kitchen chair forever to make sure she stayed in bed. Or going in to her in the nursery time after time after time when she would cry and cry and cry- that was painful for all of us!

Lorelei is also easy when it comes to naps, or lack thereof. She typically takes 2 naps now- one for 1 hour and one for 2 hours, but if she misses one, she's fine. Maybe a little fussy, but still all smiles and easygoing. She'll even take a nap in the stroller sometimes! She did this at Mike and Jen's on Sunday....we got there around 2, so she still had a nap to take and sure enough- sometime around 5, I plopped her in the stroller with a bottle and she fell asleep.

I'm pretty sure she's up to 8 teeth now. This is notable because at 10 months, neither of the other 2 kids had any teeth. She's got a few words....mama, dada, wow, and uh-oh. uh oh was a surprise....a couple of weeks ago, Sue was over and sitting next to L and said uh oh when she fell or dropped something. Rory repeated it, but it sounded much too perfect, so we chalked it up to coincidence. However, the rest of the day she kept repeating uh oh, uh oh, uh oh....over and over and over!

That's all I can think of now about Rory-bug, but I'm going to try realllllly hard to update here more often with the little cutenesses that happen every day.

Like when I go in to her in the morning and her face lights up! She always pulls herself up as quickly as possible and grabs onto me so tightly- pure delight! I love how she buries her face in my chest- just for a hug, as if she can't get close enough. Ahhhhhhhh...how am I going to make it through the years between when my kids are babies and they have babies for me to hold and care for?????

Once a month

So it appears that my posts are coming out about once a month or so, which I really hate. Every day, so many things happen that I know will be gone from my memory shortly after they occur, but I just can't seem to motivate to actually write them down at the end of the day. Here's my attempt to catch up to today :)

Today was a particularly challenging day for my mothering skills....it started last night, really....George let the big kids stay up late for movie night, which usually ends badly. Firstly, I spend most of the day anticipating that hour or two during which time I am just me....I can sit, sip a beer, surf the web, and maybe sorta listen to some stupid tv show. When the kids stay up late, I'm still on duty so I can't relax and that day just runs into the next. This happened last night....it was only a couple of hours into all 3 kids being asleep that one after the other they started waking up. Which meant that I kept waking up with them. Add in that George was swimming an open water swim this morning and set the alarm for 3:45, so my sleep time was limited to begin with.

During one of Lorelei's wakeups, Anya heard me and asked for some water. As I kissed her forehead, my lips nearly caught on fire, which was not a good sign. Always the optimist, I hoped that she was just hot from wearing flannel pj's and sleeping under her comforter, but of course this was not the case.

When she woke up in the morning, she started complaining of a headache and upset belly. I was still hoping it was just a headache (strangely accompanied by a fever of 100.6) and gave her Motrin. Which came right back up...... So back to our barfing setup of bucket, big towel, and cool washcloth we went. I swear, Anya will be the most experienced barfer in her class! She's been in pretty good spirits, but the poor thing spent the entire day laying on the couch sleeping.

So now I realized that I would have to occupy and entertain 2 smaller and very energetic kids all day. Without using the pool! Of course, Baz was changed into his swimsuit by 8am and ready to go! Lorelei had been the first to rise around 6am and went down for a nap around 7:30, which helped me tend to Anya. Luckily, Baz was ok with a movie during this time, but once Lorelei was up, he insisted on going outside.

Anya had gone to sleep then, so I opened up the hot tub for Baz and took a chair out on the porch so I could sit while L toddled around. It was not ideal for her because the ground was still wet and the boards are pretty rough, so a splinter in the making, but as it turned out she did fine. She got wet and dirty, but still had fun. Baz only lasted in the tub for a short time (yay!), then moved on to his water table.

Things got a little hairy for a couple of hours then, as Anya still felt crappy and anything she tried to put down came back up. Baz was full of energy and tried to stir up trouble with both of his sisters. Lorelei just acted like a curious infant and got into everything she possibly could.

I was so happy when lunchtime came around....Baz and Lorelei finished their soup. Baz had a "hupcake" that he had made yesterday with Grandma and Pap Pap (and by had, I mean licked the icing off). And then I accomplished the impossible....I got all 3 kids to nap at the same time!!!! Holy cow- I hit the mother load! Of course, I had to wrestle with the voices inside my head that told me to pop in a Turbo Jam and exercise, but I convinced them that my body needed rest more than more work, so I spent a little time just laying down- heaven!

Anya was the first up and we spent a little time just sitting together quietly, which was nice. She's such a trooper when she's sick....she lets me know when she REALLY needs me and when she can wait a few, she does. She tried eating some chicken noodle soup then and I actually thought it would stay down, but a few hours later, it did come right back up.

Once the other kids woke up, I knew I had the hardest part of the day ahead of me, but I had some plans.....Baz had already asked for Toy Story 2 before his nap and he still wanted to watch it. That worked ok- I kept feeding L different toys to keep her occupied and she was ok. By 3:30-4, the natives were getting restless....I broke out the play doh and that kept them going while I made dinner.....finally, George made it home and we had dinner. Baz had about 3 helpings of pasta and meatballs- yippee!!! Anya tried a piece of pasta, which went poorly, but I'm glad she tried I suppose.

After bathing Lorelei and Baz and putting them down, I'm finally sitting down writing all of this monotony down. Of course, I've left out the cute/funny things....I've already forgotten them!